McLellan's Sharks might become Red Wings west

Yahoo Sports' Ross McKeon watched the San Jose Sharks' season-opening 4-1 win over the Anaheim Ducks on Thursday, and McKeon felt that there was a distinctive Red Wings flavour to the Sharks' play. Red Wings coach Mike Babcock isn't exactly surprised that McLellan's "program" bears an ever-so-slight resemblance to the template he worked with in Detroit:

October 10, Yahoo Sports: "You know, the challenges are going to be like anything. You've got to establish a program and you've got to keep people accountable, and it's hard to win each night in the West," McLellan's former boss Babcock said. "It's not like Ron Wilson didn't do a good job."

Wilson was showed the door a week after the Sharks furthered their underachieving postseason reputation by bowing out of the Stanley Cup playoffs last spring in the second round for the third straight year. The players had more to do with that than the former coaching staff, but general manager Doug Wilson wasn't about to remake what appears to be a strong roster.

So it's up to McLellan to make the difference. And that means doing things his way, and doing things the way of the Detroit Red Wings, which have had a definite influence on McLellan's ways.

"I would like us to be a workmanlike team," McLellan said. "We can talk about Xs and Os and who is supposed to be where, but I believe we're ready in that area. We want our defensemen a little more active, a little more on the rush. I like to see us get more pucks to the net than in the past and be a little more authoritative in those areas around the net."

Those and other changes were very evident in San Jose's opening-night 4-1 win over the Anaheim Ducks. After playing a tentative, at times maybe even nervous, first period, the Sharks were a different team at the start of the second and until the end of the game against their Pacific Division rivals.